Progress of Education in Virginia; Colleges in Virginia, Part III [pp. 401-409]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
A MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART.
RICHMOND, JUNE, 1857.
PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA.
THE UNITERSITY-THE COLLEGES-THE MILITARY INSTITTET.
" Sequel,' (April No., p. 246,) seems to
think that this " breaking in" operation
had been performed by a different power.
He says: "Now it is one of the chief
excellencies of our own University, that
its system broke in upon the illiberal systems which precedent had established."
So doctors will disagree.
But we must break off just here, lest
the author of the "Sequel" may think
that we are trying to get up a quarrel
between him and the Superintendent, as
he seems to think we tried to do, between
the University and the Institute, in our
article of March last. Now, in all sincerity, we would like to know from this
writer, how he can torture any sentence
of that article so as to make it even tend
"to stimulate unkind feelings between"
these two public institutions. We deny
the charge, as a forced and wrongful
construction of language. No motive
so unworthy called forth any word or
sentence in that article.
The writer of the "Sequel" thinks
that some one of several motives may
have called forth the review of the " Introductory Address," in which we took
the liberty of indulging, to wit: "the
absorbing interest of the great cause of
educational progress in Virginia," or
" the merit of the Lecture itself," or " a
desire on the part of the reviewer to
give utterance to some unkind feeling!'
Beginning now with these several hypothetical motives in reverse order, we
The Superintendent of the V. M. Ilastitute published an " Introductory Address" at the opening of the current session, in which he assumed, for his abnormal institution, certain claims to which
we chose to demur, as will be found set
forth in the March number of this mag.
azine. In the April number, a Sequel to
the "Address" appears,-whether sanctioned at "Head-quarters" or not, we
are not informed.
In the " Sequel," we are verily glad
to find the claims of the Superintendent
greatly softened down. It seems that
his friends who enlist under his banner,
are not yet prepared to extend the Protectorate of his military establishment
quite so far as he is himself disposed to
di. We were especially struck with the
deference paid to the University, by the
writer of the "Sequel." If he is a man-,
atarms, he seems to have thought it
quite within the sphere of his dignity to
doff his military chapeau in the presence
of that magnificent institution. Its pride
of pre-eminence he would by no means
wound. But the Superintendent himself is not so entirely deferential, as will
be seen by looking into the Introductory
Address, (pp. 13, 14,) or into the March
number of the Messenger, (p. 162.) He
says also, that the 3lilitary Institute "at
once broke in upon the established systems of college education as they had
come down from the monastic institutions of Europe." But the author of the
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